Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2025

Department

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a global health threat that is difficult to directly monitor prior to clinical presentation. Wastewater surveillance has emerged as a public health tool that could aid in identifying the community wide circulation of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB), however this is complicated by the potential growth and decay of ARB within the sewer network. Sewer systems have been suggested as a primary place where sub-lethal doses of antibiotics are present with human and environmental adapted bacterial strains, however little is understood about what physiochemical properties might enhance or inhibit ARG propagation. Hence, key concerns exist about the sewer system being a potential reservoir for ARGs and a source of their persistence in wastewater with sewer microbiome serving as potential evolution points for bacterial gene transfer. The objective of this review is to summarize what is currently known about sewer microbiomes and the incidence of ARGs. Studies on occurrence, conveyance and fate of ARGs in sewer systems are presented and the role and impact of sewer residence time of wastewater in influencing the transmission and type of transfer mechanisms is assessed.

Publisher's Statement

© 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Publisher’s version of record: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wroa.2025.100378

Publication Title

Water Research X

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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